Blood on the Divide (3 page)

Problem was, he'd been damn near everywhere there was to go in the wilderness. Preacher had been born restless, and in his more than two decades in the Big Empty, he had gained a reputation as not only a fierce and respected warrior, but also as scout and explorer, helping to guide many a government team through the seemingly impassable reaches of the mountains and the rivers.

Preacher saddled up and gave Hammer his head and let him go. Hammer soon began following wagon tracks and Preacher, with a sigh, let him have his way. He found no fresh signs of graves along the way for the next two days, so the pilgrims were staying lucky. So far. Two days later, he saw the buzzards circling. He checked his weapons and pushed on, steeling himself for the awful sight that would soon present itself to him.

He came up cautiously on what was left of the wagon train he'd seen back at the post. It was anything but a pretty sight. The men and women and kids had been hit whilst they were abed. Nearly all of them was dressed in bed clothes, which was something Preacher never could understand about pilgrims. They dress up to go to bed, then take off their dress-up-to-bed clothes to dress up again when they got out of bed.

Rifle in hand, Preacher walked among the silent and stiffened dead. The women and the girls had all been raped and the men tortured pretty bad. Preacher had seen sights similar, but not on this large a scale. A man might say it didn't bother him – as Preacher had often said – and a man might say that a man gets used to it – as Preacher had often said – but a man really don't get used to it. A man just steels himself for the task, that's all.

The buzzards were everywhere, many of them too bloated from human flesh and entrails to fly. They just waddled around and looked disgusting. Preacher found an intact shovel amid the wreckage and rubble and knocked half a dozen of the big, lumbering carrion eaters in the head until the rest of them got the message and waddled off a few yards away from the bodies, to stand out of harm's way and stare malevolently at the man who spoiled their dining.

Preacher began the laborious task of dragging what was left of the bodies off the trail and over to a ravine. There, he dumped them over the side. It wasn't very sedate, and certainly no one would call it Christian, but it was the best the mountain man could do. Damned if he was going to dig a lot of holes in the rocky ground. It would take him a week. By that time the bodies would be stinking so bad not even the buzzards could stand it. He really had no idea how many men and women and kids had been massacred, for they'd been dead several days and the buzzards and the varmits had been hard at work, dragging bodies and parts of bodies off into the woods to eat or stash for later.

Preacher changed out of his buckskins and into homespuns and worked all that day. It was late afternoon when he had nearly filled the small ravine with bodies and caved in the top to crudely cover the remains. He made a cross out of rocks, like a T on the ground, carefully working the rocks into the ground so's they'd stay put . . . at least for a time. He'd gotten used to the smell, but knew the vile odor had permeated his clothing and they'd have to be thrown away. Which was the reason he'd changed into homespuns. He found some soap amid the rubble and stowed the bars in his pack. He camped a mile from the ambush site and the next morning, after a bath, began casting around for sign. What he found disturbed him more than a little.

While he was gathering up a few stray horses that had wandered back to the ambush site and building a crude corral for them, he ruminated on the sign he'd found.

It appeared that maybe half a dozen or so people had escaped the slaughter and headed into the woods. And from the size of their footprints, they either was women or kids or both. There wasn't a man-sized print to be found.

“Lord have mercy,” Preacher said. “Little children adrift in the wilderness. If they was borned out here, they might have a chance. But these is town kids, and I bet most of them don't know left from right.”

He went off the trail and into the timber, staying with the tracks of the survivors. It wasn't that hard to do. A piece of thread, a tore-off bit of dress that had snagged on a branch, a strand of blond hair hooked on a twig . . . all these things were easy to follow if a body knowed how, and Preacher knew how.

He finally concluded that there was six kids and one growed-up woman. Three boys, three girls, and one woman. Alone in the Big Empty, probably without even a weapon of any kind, and no flint to start a fire, for he hadn't found any sign of old ashes.

The renegades who attacked the train – and they were renegades, for he'd found several bodies – were long gone. Preacher had made sure of that before he started totin' off the dead. Red Hand's bunch, he was sure.

“Damn that renegade bastard!” Preacher said. “I just keep runnin' into that bad Injun.”

Preacher found where the small party of survivors had stripped off berries and gobbled them up right then and there. He had to smile. He'd be catchin' up with them 'fore long. These berries would give a body the rear-end squirts real quick, and a belly-hurt, too. But Preacher knew how to fix that, once he caught up with them. Rhubarb was good, and so was honey. Dandelion was pretty good and chamomile was good for the bellyache.

But first he had to find them that got away. And then that very thought sobered him as he muttered, “What the hell am I gonna do with them?”

Preacher spotted the group and hunkered down in the brush, taking a slow and careful look around to be certain that no renegades were using them as bait.

Then he stood up and the small group spotted him. Before he could open his mouth, the girls started screaming and shrieking to high heaven and the boys started chunking stones at him. They must have had quite a pile of them. The air was filled with stones of various sizes. Preacher hit the ground.

“Wait a minute!” he hollered. “Damnit, I'm here to help you. Stop throwin' them rocks at me.”

The stone barrage ceased and Preacher carefully got to his feet and cautiously moved forward, not wanting to get conked on the bean by an apple-sized stone, for these people were still some bad scared.

“I found what was left of the wagon train,” he called, approaching the group. “I done my best to bury the dead.”

“I saw you back at the fort,” a boy said. “You're the mountain man called Preacher. Mr. Larrabee said you were famous.”

“I wouldn't know about that,” Preacher replied. He looked at the group. Boys and girls about the same age. Ten to twelve, he figured. The woman was a looker. Maybe twenty-one or -two years old. Fine figure of a female, mussed up hair, dirty face, and all. Poked out in all the right places. Defiant type, too, for she met his appraising eyes with no blinking. “Come on. I found horses back yonder and corralled 'em. I found food that wasn't touched by the Injuns – ”

“It wasn't just red Indians,” the woman said. “There were whites among them.”

“That don't surprise me none, missy. The Pardee brothers probably hooked up with Red Hand like Bum and his boys done last year. I killed Bum and his bunch; should have tracked Red Hand down and kilt him too. Sorry I didn't now. I will this time, you can bet on that. You kids line up and stay behind me. Sister, you bring up the rear and don't let none of these babies stray off. Come on.”

It was not far back to the ruins of the wagon train, only a few miles, and Preacher set an easy pace because he could see the group was very tired. “What's your name, sister?” Preacher called over his shoulder.

“Betina. Betina Drum.”

“You lose family in the attack?”

“No. I was traveling with a family, but they were no relation to me.”

“You ain't got no man?”

“I'm spoken for. He's back East. He is to join me later.”

Preacher muttered darkly and profanely, not quite under his breath, about the caliber of men who sent their women alone into the wilderness. The girl behind him giggled at his words.

Preacher stopped the group in the timber and brush a few hundred yards from the still-stinking wreckage of the wagon train and told them to stay put. From the edge of the timber, he checked out the ruins and then waved the group forward.

“Betina, you take the girls and see what you can salvage from this mess. Clothing and food and money that might be hid in secret compartments in the wagons. Movers do that. Red Hand and Pardee might have missed some of it. Most Injuns ain't got no use for money. Don't know what it is. These children got to have something to get them back East. I'll take the boys and do the same. Now, there might be some bodies I missed under some tangle, so be careful.”

He stood for a moment, watching her walk away, and admired the sight for a few seconds. Then he remembered the boys and got them busy digging and pawing through the rubble.

They found food aplenty and articles of clothing and underthings and the like. Several knew where their parents had hidden money and they brought it to Preacher. He shook his head.

“We'll put it in the saddlebags and let Miss Drum see to it. That's a lot of money and I don't want no part of it. Come on, let's get saddled up and get gone from this place.”

“We want to conduct a memorial service first, Mr. Preacher,” Betina said. “Over the mass grave. It's the Christian thing to do.”

“All right. You have at it, lady. I'll just see to the horses.”

The horses were all riding stock, and that had surprised Preacher, but obviously the outlaws and renegade Injuns had been too busy raping and torturing and looting to gather up all the livestock. They had driven off the cattle to eat later. Preacher had found saddles among the rubble, and had repaired those that had been slightly damaged. The attackers had made only a half-hearted attempt to torch the wreckage.

Preacher waited with the horses while the little band of survivors had them a prayer service over the grave site. But he did take off his battered hat. Preacher did some thinking while the others was prayin' and singin'. Sounded right nice, too. The girls had good voices.

Preacher figured he was closer to that little settlement he'd come up on than he was to the post. So he'd head there and see if those good folks would take in the kids for a time until they could see their way to get back to the post. Betina had told him she was a trained schoolmarm, so maybe she could stay there with them until her man come out from the East.

Preacher was amazed at how well the kids were holding up in the face of all this. But then, he knew that kids really had no grasp of death. When you're young, you think you're gonna live forever. One girl had cried when she found the body of her little dog. She had carefully and lovingly buried the arrow-shot pup. Those had been the only tears shed so far. That Preacher had seen. Maybe nothing had really set in yet, he figured.

That got Preacher to thinking about when he was a little boy and the dog he had. Got him to feelin' plumb emotional there for a few minutes.

“Come on, people,” Preacher muttered, looking at the little group. “We're losin' daylight.”

The group was silent as they rode away, the females riding astride just like the boys. Preacher figured the settlement was about two days' ride away from the ambush site. They'd have to spend at least one night on the trail. And he had no way of knowing how near or far away the renegade Injuns and Pardee's bunch might be. But he had been watching and had spotted no signs of smoke.

“I sure can get myself into some pickles,” he muttered.

Once, on the crest of a long hill, while the coffee was boiling and the meat cooking, Preacher rested his charges and pointed out to the seemingly empty vastness. “That's the way I remember it,” he said to Betina, a note of wistfulness in his voice. “Not a white man as far as the eyes could see. It'll never be the same no more.”

“Civilization is moving westward. It's called progress, Preacher.”

“Pain in the butt is what I call it.”

“It's so ... big,” one of the girls said.

“It's that, all right, button,” Preacher told her. “You get lost out yonder and we'd never find you. Remember that.” He watched as the heads of the horses came up and their ears pricked. “Get out of sight,” he told Betina and the kids. “Stay low and quiet no matter what happens. Take the horses and move into the timber. If anything happens to me, you know where to go, Bet. So move. Right now.”

A moment later, the little party and their mounts had vanished into the timber and brush. Preacher kicked some dirt over a mess of little shoe prints and waited by the fire, his Hawken at hand. It wasn't a long wait. Four men rode slowly toward him, coming from the west. Preacher knew only one of them, a no-good who called himself Son. But if the other three had tossed their lot in with Son, they were just as sorry as he was.

“Hi-ho, the fire,” Son called. “That shore smells like coffee to me.”

“What the hell else would I be boilin'?” Preacher said sourly. “Hot water to bile my socks in? I ain't got no socks so it must be coffee water.”

“Preacher,” Son said, walking his horse up to the edge of the tiny clearing. “I thought it was you. You just as ill-tempered as I recall.”

“I ain't ill-tempered neither, Son. I just don't like you. So don't bother dismountin'. There ain't nothin' here for you or them with you.”

“You wouldn't let no poor tarred travelers git down and stretch the kinks out whilst partakin' of coffee and that there fine-smellin' meat, Preacher?” Son asked.

“No.”

“Then by God we'll just take it!” one of the men with Son hollered. “And if you don't like it, Slim, you can just go to hell!”

Preacher slowly turned his head. The mouthy man had no way of knowing it, but he was only heartbeats away from sudden and violent death. He should have expected it; that was the way he had lived. “You think you'll do that, huh?” Preacher asked.

“Yeah,” the man said with an evil grin. His teeth were blackened stubs. “But first I think I'll kick your ass around this camp just for the fun of it.”

Preacher shot him with the .54 Hawken. The big ball slammed into the man's chest and knocked him out of the saddle, his arms flung wide. He hit the ground and lay still, his heart shattered. His horse trotted off a few yards and stopped. Son and the other two were in momentary shock.

Preacher was on his feet, a cocked pistol in each hand. “They's both double-shotted, boys. Who wants it?”

Son and the two others stared at the dead man for a moment, their faces pale under the whiskers and dirt. Outlaws and scum, they were accustomed to always having the upper hand. They were not accustomed to this. They tore their eyes from the dead and stared at Preacher.

“I just flat out ain't got no use for you people,” Preacher told the trio. “Now flop your friend acrost his saddle and get the hell gone from here.”

“You're a mean man, Preacher.” Son had found his voice and croaked out the words. He cleared his throat. “That was an unchristian and turrible low thing you just done. That poor wretch was only funnin' with you.”

“I didn't see no joke to it. Man pushes me, I just ain't got no sense of humor. You got any idee what's in the Hereafter, Son?” Preacher asked him.

“No.”

“You want to find out this day?”

Son shook his head. “I reckon not.”

“Then get off your horse and get that dead man and yourselves gone from here. I ain't got no time to waste with the likes of you people. And keep them hands away from your guns. I might mistook sudden movement as a hostile thing and lose my patience with you boys. I don't think you'd like that.”

“You're a cruel and vile person, Preacher,” Son told him, slowly and carefully dismounting, all the while being very careful to keep his hands clear of the pistols stuck behind his wide belt. “I say this to you as a man who fears the Almighty's wrath. The Lord will not smile kindly upon you come the day of the trumpets' sound.”

“You best worry about your own salvation, Son. I'm recallin' all them widder women you robbed back East, before you run from a noose back yonder and slithered like a snake to the wilderness, and all them trappers out here you kilt for their pelts. You want to deny any of what I said?”

Son glowered hate and fury at Preacher, but made no attempt at rebuttal.

The two with Son stepped down and gingerly hoisted the bloody body of the dear departed across his saddle and tied him down. They mounted up and looked at Preacher.

“Ride!” Preacher told the three of them. “I don't never want to see your ugly faces again. And I mean it, boys. Son, you come ridin' in here with evil thoughts and bad intentions. I could smell the nastiness in you 'fore I smelled the stink of you personal. I ought to do the world a favor and kill you here and now. But you can ride. Now go 'fore I change my mind.”

When they had ridden off, Preacher put away his pistols and charged his Hawken. “Stay hid,” he called softly. “They might work up some courage and decide to come back. They know I wasn't here alone. They ain't stupid. They's enough meat cookin' for a damn army.”

“You're a violent man, Mr. Preacher,” Betina called from the brush. “You could have shot to only wound that poor man.”

“Yeah, I could have. But I didn't, did I? Now sit still and hush up.”

Preacher ran up a hill and climbed a tree, watching Son and his party fade from view. He had him a hunch he'd see them someday, but for this day they'd had enough. Preacher also figured they wouldn't take the time to bury the body – they'd just dump it along the way.

“Let's hurry up and eat and get gone, people,” Preacher told Betina and the kids.

Preacher ate with one eye on the trail Son had taken. He hadn't told Betina or the kids, but there hadn't been enough bodies back at the ambush site to match up with all the wagons he'd seen leave the post. And Jack Larrabee had not been among the dead. Preacher had made sure of that. He took into account that some women and girl kids might have been taken for hoppin' on later, but he was pretty sure that some others had taken to the woods and the brush and had made it clear. If possible, he would leave the woman and the kids at the settlement, and then head for the Lonesome and try to find some of those who had escaped the slaughter. He had him a notion that Jack was on the trail of the ambushers, and outnumbered or not, as he surely was, Jack was riding to take his vengeance.

As for any of the others who escaped the massacre, Preacher could only wish them the best. Grown-up men could look after themselves and try to stay alive. But the thought of little kids wanderin' around hurt, scared, and hungry didn't set well with him.

Preacher halted the parade an hour before dark, built a small fire, and fixed bacon and bread and coffee. Then he moved several more miles before bedding the kids down for the night in a cold camp. He made sure they were safe and had cover aplenty, then sat with his back to a tree, his Hawken across his knees.